Maybe she sensed the sudden, predatory quickness in his veins too. If not, the low, hungered vibration in the back of his throat was definitely too hard for her to miss. Not to mention the other involuntary reaction his body was having just from being this close to her.
She slipped her hands out from under his without a word as he worked to unfasten the impossibly delicate clasp of her necklace. It took all his focus and a little Breed-influenced mind over matter to get the damned thing open when his fingers felt as useless as sausages.
“Got it,” he muttered tightly.
“Thanks.” She didn’t seem the least bit affected by his touch. She reached up and took the loose necklace from him, then crisply walked the couple of steps away from him to the storage unit door.
“You should let me do that. We don’t know what’s in there.”
She swung a dismissive look over her shoulder at him. “Whatever Laurel left for me in here isn’t going to hurt me.”
Razor grunted, and gave her a reluctant nod. He stepped beside her as she put her key into the lock and gave it a twist. The metal clicked open.
Willow took off the lock, then Razor reached down and grabbed the door’s handle. He hoisted it up, lifting the door on its rollers. The metallic screech of the pulleys echoed into the quiet all around them.
He stared into the unit and frowned. “What the hell?”
It was empty except for one thing.
Lying in the middle of the dusty concrete floor was an old paperback book.
Its spine was warped, its cover was curled and worn, like most of its dog-eared pages, which fanned up like an accordion. There was a color photograph of some type of yellow bird on the cover. The kind of image found on a field guide or encyclopedia.
At first glance, Razor wondered if someone had gotten to the unit ahead of them and cleaned it out. But then Willow let out a small, strangled gasp and raced inside to pick up the book.
“I know this book,” she said, turning to hold it out for him to see. “It’s theField Guide to North American Birds. Laurel and I used to have a book like this when we were at the—” Her words halted abruptly, and only for an instant, before she went on. “When we were little, she and I spent hours poring over all the birds in a book just like this.”
She fanned through some of the pages, then tilted her head, her brows pinched. “No . . . not a booklikethis one. Thisisour book. The pages have some of our scribbles and annotations on them from all those years ago. She kept it with her all this time?” She looked up at Razor with a mix of wonder and confusion. “Laurel said I would know what to do once I got here and opened the storage unit. Why would she leave this for me now? What am I supposed to do?”
Razor ran his hand through his hair and shook his head. “I don’t know. All I do know is that we need to get moving.”
“To where?”
“As far from here as we can, for starters.”
She clutched the book close, as if it was an extension of her sister that she needed to hold tight. With one last look at the now-empty storage unit, she stepped toward Razor and followed him back out to her Jeep.
“You need to get some rest,” he told her, watching as she climbed back into the passenger seat beside him.
“I’m fine,” she said, still holding her book like a life line.
Her movements were sluggish and fatigued as she settled in and fastened her seat belt. Her face was pale, her normally bright eyes dull and heavy-lidded. Exhaustion and the weight of the day’s events would only continue pressing down on her.
It would only be a few more hours before sunrise. If she didn’t get some decent sleep somewhere, she would be dead on her feet before long. He needed her mentally sharp and running on all cylinders—at least until he could decide where to take her that she’d be safe long-term without him.
As a Hunter he had been born and raised to kill, to destroy. He was damned good at those things. Some might say he was the best. One of the coldest, to be sure.
What he had never done before was bodyguard someone, least of all a beautiful woman who was already starting to wreak havoc on his senses.
His only saving grace was the fact that she seemed to dislike his kind as a whole. Her reaction on the road with him a few hours ago replayed in his mind. Christ, had she really thought he might tear out her throat with his talons—or his fangs—if he wanted to extract the truth from her?
He had to admit, it wouldn’t have been the first time he’d resorted to such brutal methods, but never on an innocent. Never on her, not for any reason. He was a born-and-bred killer, but he wasn’t a complete monster.
Not that she needed to know that. The farther he could keep her from him while still under his protection, the better. For both of them.
He glanced at her again, a mistake that only had him itching to touch her, to smooth some of her windblown hair away from her pale cheek. He could still feel the heat of her small hands caught beneath his larger ones. He could still smell the sweet fragrance of her tousled hair. She was delicate but not frail. Soft but not weak. Vulnerable but not helpless.
Willow Valcourt was everything he’d imagined her to be when he’d watched her through his drone camera’s eye during all those months of long-distance torment. She was more than he’d imagined, in fact. But she wasn’t his.
